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Sunday, December 7, 2014

Curiosity prepares the brain for better learning and long-term memory

Do we live in a holographic universe? How green is your coffee? And could drinking too much water actually kill you?

Before you click those links you might consider how your
knowledge-hungry brain is preparing for the answers. A new study from
the University of California, Davis, suggests that when our curiosity is
piqued, changes in the brain ready us to learn not only about the
subject at hand, but incidental information, too.

Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath and his fellow researchers asked 19
participants to review more than 100 questions, rating each in terms of
how curious they were about the answer. Next, each subject revisited 112
of the questions - half of which strongly intrigued them whereas the
rest they found uninteresting - while the researchers scanned their
brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

During the scanning session participants would view a question then wait
14 seconds and view a photograph of a face totally unrelated to the
trivia before seeing the answer. Afterward the researchers tested
participants to see how well they could recall and retain both the
trivia answers and the faces they had seen.

Ranganath and his colleagues discovered that greater interest in
a question would predict not only better memory for the answer but also
for the unrelated face that had preceded it. A follow-up test
one day later found the same results - people could better remember a
face if it had been preceded by an intriguing question. Somehow curiosity could prepare the brain for learning and long-term memory more broadly.

The findings are somewhat reminiscent of the work of U.C. Irvine
neuroscientist James McGaugh, who has found that emotional arousal can
bolster certain memories. But, as the researchers reveal in the October 2 Neuron, curiosity involves very different pathways.

To understand what exactly had occurred in the brain
the researchers turned to their imaging data. They discovered that
brain activity during the waiting period before an answer appeared could
predict later memory performance. Several changes occurred during this
time.

First, brain activity ramped up in two regions in the midbrain, the
ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens. These regions transmit the
molecule dopamine, which helps regulate the sensation of pleasure and
reward. This suggests that before the answer had appeared the brain's
eager interest was already engaging the reward system. "This
anticipation was really important," says Ranganath's co-author, U.C.
Davis cognitive neuroscientist Matthias Gruber. The more curious a
subject was, the more his or her brain engaged this anticipatory
network.

In addition, the researchers found that curious minds showed increased activity in the hippocampus, which is involved in the creation of memories.
In fact, the degree to which the hippocampus and reward pathways
interacted could predict an individual's ability to remember the
incidentally introduced faces. The brain's reward system seemed to
prepare the hippocampus for learning.

The implications are manifold. For one, Ranganath suspects the findings
could help explain memory and learning deficits in people with
conditions that involve low dopamine, such as Parkinson's disease.

Piquing curiosity could also help educators, advertisers and
storytellers find ways to help students or audiences better retain
messages. "This research advances our understanding of the brain
structures that are involved in learning processes," says Goldsmiths,
University of London psychologist Sophie von Stumm, unconnected to the
study. She hopes other researchers will replicate the work with
variations that can clarify the kinds of information curious people can
retain and whether results differ for subjects who have broad 'trait'
curiosity as opposed to a temporarily induced specific interest.

Ranganath's findings also hint at the nature of curiosity itself.
Neuroscientist Marieke Jepma at the University of Colorado Boulder, who
also did not participate in this study, has previously found that
curiosity can be an unpleasant experience, and the brain's reward
circuitry might not kick in until there is resolution. She suspects,
however, that her findings and Ranganath's results are two sides of the
same coin. To explain this, she refers to the experience of reading a
detective novel. "Being uncertain about the identity of the murderer may
be a pleasant reward-anticipating feeling when you know this will be
revealed," she says. "But this will turn into frustration if the last
chapter is missing."

Ranganath agrees that the hunger for knowledge is not always an
agreeable experience. "It's like an itch that you have to scratch," he
says. "It's not really pleasant."

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